Samantha Frost, 11-13-2012

Machine vision is hard. That’s why companies like Cognex invest tens of millions of dollars in complex algorithms, software and hardware development to ensure fast, reliable and repeatable performance.

Your vision system, however, should be easy. Setting up applications, creating custom operator interfaces and administering your vision system network should be a simple straightforward process.

Your setup interface should walk you through all of the steps of a vision application, including setting up the acquisition settings, finding and inspecting the part and communicating the results to other devices on the factory floor. Look for a configurable system that doesn’t require programming knowledge. Your setup software should make it simple for you to calibrate the system to work in real world units instead of pixels. When you add tools to the application, the system should give you a quick view of which tools are passing and failing so you can evaluate how well the application is set up. You should be able to build a complete operator interface to allow changing tolerances or to support line changeovers. Lastly, look for a system that offers maintenance tools for backing up, restoring or cloning systems and carrying out firmware upgrades.